Characters from the history of culture often appear as protagonists with Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov. Here we have Hamlet and Faust. Prigov acknowledges them as two types of reflexing consciousness, deeply rooted in European culture. Yet here the reflection does not have the same intensity as the primary source, rather only the inertia of fading motion. They are not to be mistaken for heroes – they are ordinary, and even marginal; their reflections are awkward and out of place. The sad truth is that contemporaneity sets a framework which does not allow these characters to live up to their destinies. The rules of life are not in discord with the pathos of “lofty thoughts”, but fully compatible with this pathos as a prop of behavioural routine, a mere unobtrusive habit. Today they are the rustling whisper of language, nothing more than that.